PARK PLACE: Michael Gross’ 2005 book about the storied Rosario Candela-designed 740 Park is the inspiration for a new documentary. Photo: PacificCoastNews.com

Take a big best-seller about a famous apartment building that’s home to some of the world’s leading plutocrats. Cross it with a muckraking documentarian. What you get: “Park Avenue: Money, Power & the American Dream.”

This documentary, which airs on PBS on Nov. 12 (and will be available on Netflix, iTunes and Hulu later this month), is inspired by Michael Gross’ 2005 book, “740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building.” It’s directed by Alex Gibney, the filmmaker behind “Taxi to the Dark Side” and “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.”

Unlike the book, Gibney’s “comparing the Park Avenue in The Bronx — the center of the poorest congressional district in the country — with the Park Avenue of ‘740 Park,’ ” says Gross, who is writing a column for The Post’s new Alexa Luxe Living section on Oct. 24.

Of course, there’s nothing like the Bronx’s Park Avenue in Gross’ book, which focuses on the lives of billionaire barons. “This is Alex Gibney’s ‘740 Park’ — not Michael Gross’,” Gross says of the documentary.

In the film, Gross was interviewed at another NYC temple of wealth, 15 Central Park West (the subject of his next book), and he reveals his favorite apartment in 740 Park — John Thain’s 3,700-square-foot “jewel-box” penthouse.

In the book, beneath its eye of disapproval, Gross delights in telling inside stories about the gaudy world of master-of-the-universe apartments.

Some of the privacy-obsessed ultra-rich were not thrilled to be included in the book. Rand V. Araskog’s wife, Jessie, laced into Gross when they ran into each other at Swifty’s after the book was published. But she was also one of the residents who showed up at Gross’ book party. And values in the building certainly did not suffer: A duplex sold this year for $52 million.

Says Gross: “I’m still waiting for someone to give me a commission on my sales.”

But, given the exclusivity of the co-op complex, Gibney’s documentary doesn’t offer a tremendous amount of footage or photos from inside the building.

We do get to find out which of the A-list tenants was a bad tipper. David Koch, the richest man in New York City — he has a net worth of more than $30 billion, according to the latest Forbes list — gave only $50 to the doormen one holiday season. And he gave checks, not cash.